The Thilliez 2024 was released at the beginning of May and, on this occasion, one of the French masters of the crime novel takes us to the far north of Quebec to visit Norferville, an icy hell particularly inhospitable where the mutilated body of a young French woman is found.
At the very end of Canada, far from Montreal, hundreds of kilometers from Sept-Îles, within the white vastness of the Great North, lies Norferville. A mining town where no roads lead, only a train, the Tshiuetin, brings you to the center of the town. There, there is nothing, or so little.
Yet it is in this place, thousands of kilometers from France, that the body of Teddy Schaffran’s daughter, Morgane, is found brutally mutilated and abandoned in the snow. A detective and criminologist from Lyon, Teddy drops everything to discover what happened to his only daughter. On site, he will meet Léonie Rock, a mixed-race cop, half-white, half-Innu, who lived in Norferville when she was younger and who, above all, fled this white hell as soon as she could…
Welcome to the end of the world, into the trap of Norferville!
Just like the two heroes, Léonie and Teddy, the reader quickly finds themselves trapped in this community where time is split between alcohol, hunting, and working at the mine. Norferville is half-inhabited by employees of the mining operation, the other half by Innus confined to a reserve. To experience the atmosphere of an exotic Canadian trek, you’ll have to try elsewhere! Franck Thilliez offers a wall-less closed space, a frozen town where the blizzard and the arctic sea smoke blow. The author brilliantly establishes a chilling, apocalyptic atmosphere, where Léonie and Teddy will have to overcome both extreme temperatures and bloodthirsty men.
Nerve-racking Thriller and Social Issues
While Norferville doesn’t exist, Franck Thilliez freely drew inspiration from Schefferville and other isolated mining towns to set the scene for his thriller, “a thriller in which a murder serves as a pretext for an investigation that will highlight social issues.” Indeed, the plot surrounding Morgane Schaffran’s murder will allow the author to address several social themes, such as the situation and history of the First Nations, populations enslaved and exploited, or gender-based violence, particularly referencing the impressive National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Once again, Franck Thilliez delivers a chilling thriller, extremely well-documented, less scientific than the previous ones, where the investigation led by Léonie Rock and Teddy Schaffran will keep the reader in suspense until the very end. The subject, like the temperatures – down to minus 50 degrees – will chill you to the bone!
